Over the past four or five years, the UFC bantamweight division has come to rival the historically robust lightweight and welterweight ranks in terms of depth and overall level of consistency and skill produced inside the Octagon.
For some, the 135-pound weight class has emerged as the top division in the promotion — a perpetually compelling ensemble that features elite competitors in the championship picture, an assortment of talented emerging names, established veterans, and an outstanding blend of experienced hands and new additions that make seemingly every fight in the division must-see.
The ironic thing about bantamweight’s emergence as a top-tier weight class is that while the division as a whole has been tremendous, the championship matchups during that time have been a little lacking… until now.
Saturday’s UFC 306 main event bantamweight title fight between “Suga” Sean O’Malley and unquestioned No. 1 contender Merab Dvalishvili is the type of marquee title fight the division has lacked the last several years, and should be a showcase of why so many have been adamant about this division being the best in the entire UFC.
MORE THAN A COUPLE ROUGH YEARS
The bantamweight title picture has been a shambles since the start of 2019, when then champion TJ Dillashaw dropped down to flyweight with hopes of dethroning Henry Cejudo, only to get stopped in under a minute, test positive for EPO, and kick off a multi-year period that featured random championship pairings, an interim title fight, and general chaos.
That stretch stands a perfect contrast to the captivating stretch that came before it, beginning with Dillashaw’s unexpected first title win over Renan Barao and through his narrow loss to returning former champion Dominick Cruz.
While the long-time divisional ruler snuck in a title defence against longtime rival Urijah Faber that wasn’t necessarily merited, he closed out 2016 by taking on unbeaten rising star Cody Garbrandt, who turned in a virtuosic performance at UFC 207 to unseat Cruz and seemingly kick off a new era in the 135-pound ranks. Unfortunately, Garbrandt’s body started breaking down almost immediately, and his first title defence didn’t come until a year later when he was knocked out by Dillashaw, who then stopped him even quicker in the wholly unnecessary rematch that followed.
And that’s when things really started to go sideways.
After Dillashaw popped following his bout with Cejudo, he was stripped of the title, with the flyweight champ taking on Marlon Moraes in a battle for the vacant belt at UFC 238. Moraes started well, but faded, leading to Cejudo securing a victory, a second title.
Cejudo’s first title defence was supposed to come against Jose Aldo, who had lost his divisional debut to Moraes by a close split decision, but when the former featherweight ruler was unable to compete, Cruz was tapped as his replacement, despite the fact that he hadn’t fought in the three-plus years since his one-sided loss to Garbrandt.
Cejudo secured a second-round stoppage win (that Cruz is still salty about to this day) and then promptly announced his retirement, leaving the ultra-competitive division without a champion for the second time in 14 months.
Rising Russian star Petr Yan stopped Aldo at UFC 251 to claim the vacant title in a bout that got less competitive the longer it went on, and once again felt like an odd choice given the depth of talent within the division. As much as Aldo is a legend, he was coming off consecutive defeats, and few gave the Brazilian a chance in the championship pairing, making it feel more like a foregone conclusion than a competitive battle you needed to see play out.
Yan seemed like he could very well become the man to lead the division forward, but in his first title defence against Aljamain Sterling at UFC 259, he blasted the challenger with an illegal knee to the head while he was clearly down, resulting in a disqualification loss. Unlike professional wrestling where the title doesn’t change hands on a DQ, Sterling became champ in the most inauspicious way possible, which put him in a no-win position as champion.
With Sterling dealing with a neck injury, Yan bested Cory Sandhagen in an interim title fight at UFC 267 that was exactly the kind of fight that highlighted why the men’s bantamweight division was gaining momentum as a whole. For five rounds, the elite talents went toe-to-toe in a bout that was equal parts technical and tactical, while still being tense, competitive, and utterly captivating.
The rematch and title unification bout between Sterling and Yan took place at UFC 273 and was uneven; the animus between the two men failing to carry over into the cage, where Sterling wrestled successfully early and hung on down the stretch to escape with a narrow split decision win.
While you can’t begrudge Sterling for playing to his strengths and working to maintain his place atop the division, his grappling-heavy style was the antithesis of what many came to expect from and love about the weight class, where action-packed fights had become de rigueur. He also wasn’t helped by the fact that his next title fight came against Dillashaw, who had returned to action 15 months earlier with a debated win over Sandhagen, but turned up at UFC 280 with a shoulder that would not stay in its socket.
Sterling dominated the one-armed man to retain his title, and though he was in no way responsible for deciding the matchup or Dillashaw being injured, the situation again didn’t do him any favours and added to bantamweight title fights not being as in-demand as some of the pairings at the top of several other weight classes.
Cejudo then returned to challenge Sterling at UFC 288 in a fight everyone expected to feature O’Malley, and when the champion retained, we finally got around to the first eagerly anticipated bantamweight title fight in quite some time with “The Funkmaster” facing off with the polarizing, technicolour Dana White’s Contender Series grad.
The dawning of the O’Malley era at UFC 292 last summer felt like the next opportunity for title fights to start trending in the “can’t-miss” direction, but then the new champ got to call his own shot for his first title defence, choosing to face Marlon “Chito” Vera in a fight that didn’t take place until early March 2024, and went exactly how everyone anticipated it would go from the minute it was announced.
SOMETHING CAPTIVATING THIS WAY COMES
Saturday’s contest between O’Malley and Dvalishvili is the most captivating bantamweight title fight since Cruz defended his belt against Garbrandt nearly eight years ago.
For starters, they are each beloved by a portion of the MMA audience in a way that exceeds the usual “root for that guy” nature of fandom in this space.
There have been O’Malley loyalists convinced he was going to run the division from the night he knocked out Alfred Khashakyan and got Snoop Dogg screaming his name on the inaugural season of the Contender Series. They rode with him through the managed climb up the divisional ranks and transformation from mop-topped prospect to neon-haired, face-tattooed contender and the UFC’s style answer to Seth “Freakin’” Rollins, and will continue to do so whether he reigns over this division or not.
Similarly, Dvalishvili has cultivated a loyal following as well, built around his infectious energy, madcap antics, and unrelenting style in the Octagon. He’s gone from being the clown prince of the division and Sterling’s BFF to a bona fide title threat many are rooting for both this weekend and beyond.
Secondly, there is a simmering rivalry between the two, which started long before this matchup was made.
O’Malley debuted a week before Dvalishvili in December 2017, and while they were working forward at the same time, they took very different paths, and you get the sense that bothered the challenger.
While Dvalishvili’s second fight came against fellow prospect Ricky Simon, who was 12-1 at the time, O’Malley faced Andre Soukhamthath, who was 12-5 overall and just 1-2 in the UFC. The dichotomy continued as they each progressed forward, with O’Malley besting a series of worn-out veterans and unheralded neophytes while Dvalishvili faced fellow prospects, tenured veterans, and a host of ranked opponents.
To be clear: you can only beat the people they put in front of you, and O’Malley did that just about every step of the way, and he’s rightfully worked his way to the top of the division, but you can also understand Dvalishvili’s angst given how dramatically different their journeys have been to this point.
Adding to the tensions is that the challenger absconded with the champion’s Thriller jacket when he disrobed for a face-off with Sterling after UFC 288, creating another viral moment, this time at the expense of O’Malley.
Lastly, it’s a fantastic matchup that brings forth a number of stylistic questions that we’re finally going to get answered on both sides.
Throughout his ascent, O’Malley has been lauded for his striking acumen and exceptional footwork, but he hasn’t been forced to show much, if any, of his ground game. Now, some of that is because he didn’t face a wrestler or grappler until stepping in with Sterling for the title, but he also dispatched the grinder champion with aplomb, which must count for something.
But Dvalishvili is a different breed when it comes to his wrestling approach.
Where most grapplers want to put you on the canvas and keep you there for extend periods, working towards submissions or landing damage from top position, Davlishvili seems to delight in repeatedly depositing his opponents on the mat and breaking them by taking them down over and over and over again. He has shown the kind of relentlessness that will, in theory, force O’Malley to showcase his takedown defence and get-up game, as well as what kind of gas tank he has, as Dvalishvili has proven many times over that he can work at his trademark breakneck pace without slowing down.
On the flip side, this is just the second five-round assignment of the challenger’s UFC career and a date with the kind of expert marksman that can and will make him pay for any telegraphed entries, any miscues or any instances where he’s not ready to defend the sniper fire that is going to be coming his way.
It’s also Dvalishvili’s first championship appearance, and while you want to believe everyone is ready for these massive moments — and this one is going to be massive — history has provided us with plenty of instances where very good, perhaps even great fighters have frozen in the moment and failed to deliver when it matters most.
Aaron Bronsteter summed up the intrigue surrounding this fight perfectly a couple weeks ago:
The unpredictable nature of this fight and the reality that it could go any number of ways brings an air of excitement that has been missing from bantamweight title fights for quite some time.
O’Malley’s standing as a polarizing figure and champion adds to that, as does Dvalishvili being a lovable, goofball challenger that might also prove to be his kryptonite, and so too does the fact that this is the absolute best matchup possible in the division right now and a fight everyone has been clamouring for for basically a year, honestly.
This is the championship fight the bantamweight division has needed for some time.
Hopefully it’s as good as anticipated.
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